I was wondering were the best place to get replacement frame rails.. I was looking around on the internet and couldn't find any place to get them. I need them because a van rear ended me and tipped the bolt on hitch down pulling the right side bolt threw the rail and the front on both sides crunched .. I want to fix them with new frame rails but if i cant find them i am going to cut up a chunk of square tubing to fix the damaged parts but i am hoping i dont have to do that as it looks like it will be very involved..


any advise on how to fix this would be great..

 

I don't think anybody makes replacement sections, plating it might be easier. Or you could cut the section out of one in a junkyard

 

What did the body shop say? If you were the one who got rear-ended, the other person's insurance should pay to get it fixed.

EDIT: For some actual useful information... From my experience in rebuilding old VWs. After market body parts DO NOT FIT WELL. You best bet for a good fit is to find the least rusty XJ in the junkyard and go to town with a sawzall

 

You Jeeps a unibody. You know that right...? Just throwing this out there..if your frame is bent then you just took a massive dump and ran out of TP... I'm pretty sure you are close to being screwed if they're bent. I'm sorry to say so. :/

 

sad sad day, but you may have to collect insurance money on this one and start over.

 

And buy it back. Part it out or keep it for parts.

 

x2
Dont know what year you have but even if its in mint condition its at least 11 yrs old so with bent unibody rails the insurance co is gonna total it. I would almost be willing to bet the cost to fix it that they will total it.
Sorry!

 

Post some pics, because it's hard to gauge how bad the damage is.

 

Please tell me what you ended up doing to your frame. I recently purchased the my jeep and it has the exact same problem. I have relatively little resources to fix the frame without taking it to a body shop.

If it is too expensive then i'll probably end up leaving it. I am also afraid if i take the bent hitch off of the rig then it will compromise the stability of my frame.

 

Only way a body shop will fix that is to use heat and a frame machine. After I personally would add stiffeners since its already been bent and messed with or else next accident the damage will be worse.

 

My 92 got hit the same way. Luckily they had insurance and they paid a decent amount for it. They let me pull all my parts off it before the flatbed came though . Unfortunately it was a total loss. The hitch did the same exact thing. you could see lumps in the cargo area from the rails in the unibody being bent. Also, you may not be able to tell but there may be alot more going on the naked eye cant see. Like how the door gaps may be slightly different. When the adjuster came out they measured all the body gaps and said everything was off. But i couldnt tell at all. Were you able to get insurance information? Try going for a payout.

 

well it looks like i will have to cut out the two parts that were crunched by the front of the hitch and put in some channel steel that covers 3 inches on both sides of what i cut out.. then in the back.. i am going to cut the part that was pulled out and replace it with flat steel then see how is comes out.. if it isn't strong enough i will weld my hitch to a piece of channel iron and bolt that to the frame to stiffen it all up but that seems like it would be more than needed My girl friends father runs a body shop and said that that seems like the best way to do this if we cant get the frame rails..

 

You can't just cut unit-body parts off one , and add them to another.

 

The only thing made for the unit-body are the stiffeners which may help you out alot better than adding piece's of steel , you should be able to go right over the top of the damaged area without cutting by trying to flatten it back out or just do the very minimal of cutting.

Also a 3 inch overlap isn't strong enough at all atleast double that but I would get the UNIT BODY STIFFENERS.

 

Yes you can, it just takes time, care, and ability